never are—or so I hear.” He grinned, moving to stand on my other side, gently reaching for my second hand and holding onto it like I was the most fragile, precious thing he’d ever encountered.
They were falling in love with me. They both wanted me. They wanted to date me at the same time.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” Calum whispered, reaching up to touch my newly-dyed hair, the ombre of pink. “But you always do, and I know you don’t believe that, so I’ll keep telling you until you do.”
“And if I never do?” My voice came out in a bare whisper; I felt like my body was shaking. This couldn’t be happening. This…this was a dream; it had to be.
“Then I guess we’ll have to be extra persistent,” Mason spoke with a grin.
“You’re not joking?” I asked, afraid that they were. That this strange, beautiful dream would shatter any moment now as I woke up. Could I be happy? Could I date both these men and actually get what I wanted for once?
Mason gave me a funny look, his dimples softening as he whispered, “Why would we joke about this?”
“Well, I know why she’d think you were joking,” Calum deadpanned, “but I’m one hundred percent serious.”
“So am I,” the other said.
Both men squeezed the hand they were holding, and I stood there, lost in my thoughts, wondering what the hell I should do. What could I do? I’d tried to put up walls, tried to push both of these men away for their own good and mine, and yet here we were, as if fate itself had bound us together.
Dating two men would be hard. I’d feel like giving up a lot. Hell, I hadn’t even dated one before. Two…two seemed like an awful lot, and yet, besides being confused as I stood there, beside being frightened beyond all belief, I wasn’t uncomfortable with them. I liked them.
I…I was falling for them, too.
Love. I never thought I’d ever love anyone. I’d always assumed it wasn’t in the cards for me, not with my lack of a social life. Could I do this? Could we do this?
“So,” Mason started, causing me to glance at him. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, don’t keep us in suspense,” Calum said, giving me a small smile when I turned my eyes upon him.
What did I think? What the hell could I say? I was scared, terrified that I’d get hurt, that these two would eventually grow to hate me and become tired of constantly reassuring me about us, but…
But my little sister was right. She’d been right all along. Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me live with them forever. Life would change as I got older, and things would refuse to stay the same. My life would be full of terrifying things, new experiences and mistakes, and that was something I couldn’t change. That came hand in hand with living.
This, them, us—I didn’t know whether we’d last forever. I didn’t know if this could be a forever thing, or if we would crash and burn, but you know what? Surrounded by the two men I cared about, faced with their feelings laid bare and mine wanting to explode from my chest, there was only one thing I could say to them.
“Yes,” I said, nodding along with the word.
The atmosphere in the room changed drastically once I spoke, and I could feel the tension leave both men’s bodies. Mason all but leaped for joy, pulling me against his chest as he hugged me, thereby pulling me from Calum.
“Thank God,” Mason murmured. With my head against his chest, he added, “Can you feel my heart? I thought it was about to burst from my chest.” Just as he said, his heart beat loudly, the steady thumping of it a low melody I could get used to.
Alas, that wasn’t in the cards for me, for Calum grabbed me, wrapping me up in his arms as he stole me from Mason.
“Hey,” Mason spoke with a frown, “not fair—”
“Not fair? We’re supposed to share her, you know—”
As the two men bickered—albeit playfully—I couldn’t help myself. A smile formed on my face, and I actually felt a laugh bubble its way up my throat and escape. The laugh caused both men to cease their arguing and look at me.
The way they stared at me, like I was their whole world, made my smile grow.
This…if this was what my life would hold, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.